and food and vacations, too.

My neighbour has a 2 year old son. He is not afraid of anything. He climbs stairs without any support. He climbs down the stairs without any support either. He appears as if he would stumble and perhaps fall down the flight of stairs, but he, with his tiny legs, is again climbing down without any support of the railing.

His other favourite thing to do is chase animals. Stray dogs, peacocks, monkeys. He likes to run up to them and befriend them. He thinks they’re playing with him if they try to run away. He is not afraid of reaching out to a monkey. He isn’t afraid that the dog might bite him.

He is also not afraid of running on to the roads. As soon as he sees the gate of his home open, he wants to run on the road. He is not afraid of vehicular traffic. He doesn’t think some moving car may hit him or a stranger might take him away. No. He’s just happy to be running around. For him, everyone is playing with him.

Was I ever this fearless? Why am I afraid to take that step? Why am I afraid to speak my mind? Why am I wary of strangers? It could be series of experiences over the years that makes you cynical. Some steps we may have taken could have backfired. Sometimes staying quiet could have been better than speaking up. Perhaps if I hadn’t come across strangers who turned friends who eventually hurt me deeply, I wouldn’t be so wary of trusting people.

With experience also comes the ability to study and judge people easily. I wish I wasn’t so right about people so many times. I wish I were wrong about how terribly awful some people could be. I wish I was wrong every single time I judged someone to be a vicious human being.

But with time, I am coming to realisation it is not for me to help the distressed souls. That it is not for me to be all Mother Teresa and take them under my wings to sort out their issues. Because more often than not, all your deeds are misunderstood, even if you have best of intentions in your mind. Perhaps this is where you learn. You learn to let go and have faith that things will sort themselves out.

Perhaps I could learn from that two year old. To give in. To go heads on into things I have no idea about. To venture into the unknown. To take the plunge.